Chapter 919: Armor Spearhead and Drone Attack Group
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rundi
Staring at the wrecked line of defense on the holographic map, the Legion Commander Fang Yuanhong’s eyes widened in disbelief, and his face was no longer calm. His mouth was open, and his tightened fists trembled with fear while precious time pa.s.sed without a single order given out.
When NAC used an unknown energy weapon and destroyed half of the Wanderer tanks, he knew that he had already lost the war.
The adjutant standing beside him said in a difficult tone, squeezing out the confusion from his throat he could not understand. “…how did they transport the tanks behind us?”
Fang Yuanhong did not answer. He just silently stared at the red dots on the holographic map.
The gunfire outside the building gradually became clear. The battle was already approaching the headquarters.
“How many tanks are left?”
“Only two.”
Only two…
Yuan Fanghong’s body trembled.
Before he left, he swore to Commander Wei Bianbian of the Northern Alliance Area that he would not only lead the First Legion in winning this war, but would also do his utmost to bring all these precious tanks back intact.
Now, however, his adjutant told him that only two Wanderers were left…
…
“Bring me the Helmet Tribe leader. Not just Honchong, I would like to reward them with the entire province of Suhang.” Fang Yuanhong fixed the hat on his head, hesitated for a moment, and finally took it off and left it at the table.
The adjutant took a moment to process. He did not understand what the commander meant and subconsciously asked.
“And then?”
“And then?” Fang Yuanhong raised an eyebrow and looked at the adjutant, “and then let them protect our retreat.”
…
The retreat of the First Legion was rather decisive, just like when they came.
Since knowing that winning had become impossible, saving their power was the best option.
The unexpected tactics of Northern Alliance Area had made great advancement in the early stages, but with the extended range of the battlefield, the Northern Alliance Area quickly realized the danger of NAC’s tank without a turret.
In addition, it was not just NAC that was equipped with drones. The First Legion was also equipped with a large number of drones, including attacking drones such as Pythons. However, in order to reduce the effectiveness of NAC’s bombardment, their troops were more dispersed.
The Hunter Corps and tanks formation penetrating from the north merged with the Second Army infantry that crossed the Yangtze River near the train station. They were advancing toward the headquarters of the Northern Alliance Area.
In the final battle, NAC invested a total of 30 Longbow I, 20 Tigers II, 100 Armored Vehicles, and nearly 10,000 infantry. However, after the confluence of the main forces of the NAC, they did not encounter the Northern Alliance Area, but engaged against an unusually excited mutated human army.
Obviously, at the last moment, the Northern Alliance sold their teammates whose brain didn’t work too well. Until the last mutated human soldier fell, they still firmly believed that Hongcheng and Suhang Province belonged to the Helmet Tribe.
The First Legion retreated decisively. The Second Army only symbolically chased. After determining that it was impossible to catch up, the force regrouped at Wu City and concentrated on clearing the mutated humans that were hiding in the streets and planning to fight against them till the last moment.
The war lasted from morning until late the next day.
When the victorious news transmitted to Fishbone base and the Sixth Street, the entire NAC cheered. The atmosphere of the festivities lingered on the streets of the Sixth Street. The prices of beer and wine all skyrocketed.
After the victory of the war, the NAC military government convened a high-level meeting to summarize the successes and failures of this war and began preparing for their next step. Apart from Jiang Chen who attended the meeting, there were also heads of three army groups and other senior military officers, as well as ministers of various departments of the military government including w.a.n.g Qing and Lu Huasheng.
As an interim commander who led the Second Army to victory, Han Junhua naturally became the second protagonist at the conference table.
However, she was unable to be present because she was still on the front line. She only partic.i.p.ated in the conference through holograms.
In summary of this battle, she put forward a very interesting word.
“Armored spearhead and drone attack group?” Jiang Chen chewed on the two strange vocabularies and looked at her with intrigue. “Can you explain it in detail?”
Han Junhua nodded, opened the holographic screen, and sketched with lines to show the tactical connotation of those words.
“The so-called armored spearhead and drone attack group is the use of the most powerful aspect of armored units to form a spear to penetrate the enemy’s defense line. In coordination with the drone attack group, soft targets not targeted by armored units can be eliminated. Armored unit’s carrying capacity can be used as a carrier for large-scale drone terminals. At the same time, the maneuverability of drones also enables armored units to maximize their speed.”
After listening to Han Junhua’s explanation, Jiang Chen realized the superiority of this tactic.
With the cooperation of drones, tanks equipped with heavy firepower would move like swift lancers. They could constantly puncture the enemy’s defense line during the campaign and moved to the next combat position before the local infantry could surround them.
Especially in the urban terrain where the advantages of drones could be fully utilized, the superiority of this tactic was self-evident.
Jiang Chen silently memorized Han Junhua’s word. Not only in the apocalypse, this advanced tactic would be effective in the modern world. After all, on the other side of the world, EMP weapons didn’t reach a point where every soldier was equipped with EMP grenades. The combat effectiveness of drones could be maximized.
Han Junhua continued to read the report and quickly reached the casualties figure..
“… In the entire war, we lost a total of 14 Longbow I. Only five were destroyed by the anti-tank rockets, only three were destroyed by particle cannons of the Wanderer, six were due to technical malfunctions. So the captain of the tank was forced to abandon and destroy the vehicle.
After all, the tanks were rushed off of the production line, so it was an understandable situation. However, the problem still must be solved.
Jiang Chen looked to the Minister of Scientific Research and told him to send the issue back to Camp 27 to find out whether the problem was due to design or production. With the imminent crisis alleviated, there was now enough time to resolve these issues.
“There is another issue that we must place great importance on. It is the Type-52 Particle Cannon of the Northern Alliance. This particle cannon is the prototype of plasma weapons. We cannot unilaterally expect our enemies to remain stagnate. Now what we need to consider is how to defend against this kind of energy weapon.”
Here, Jiang Chen paused, looked at the Minister of Scientific Research and then said.
“The next key task of the Ministry of Scientific Research is to maintain its constant investment in s.p.a.ce technology and appropriately s.h.i.+ft its resources to s.h.i.+eld technology. Armor thickness is meaningless against energy weapons, whether it is the Type-52 Particulate Cannon gun or our RK-1, both already proved this point. Now we have a sharp enough spear, we still need a matching s.h.i.+eld.”
Although the war has never changed, the form of war has changed.
The era of armor was justice, and caliber was truth already pa.s.sed. Regardless of how thick the armor, against energy weapons, it would only be a matter of time and power for the armor to disintegrate in front of the energy weapons.
The technology the Pan-Asia Cooperation could not complete before the war was finished by NAC.
Next would be s.h.i.+eld technology. As long as they understood how to turn the Holy s.h.i.+eld into a small-scale version, it shouldn’t be hard to solve this problem.